RIM and Nokia have entered a new patent license agreement that will settle all existing patent lawsuits between the two

Nokia and Research In Motion (RIM) have finally resolved their patent license issues by way of RIM's wallet.

RIM and Nokia have entered a new patent license agreement that will settle all existing patent lawsuits between the two in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. The agreement requires RIM to pay Nokia a one-time payment as well as ongoing payments. The amount of the one-time and ongoing payments is unclear.

"We are very pleased to have resolved our patent licensing issues with RIM and reached this new agreement, while maintaining Nokia's ability to protect our unique product differentiation," said Paul Melin, chief intellectual property officer at Nokia. "This agreement demonstrates Nokia's industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market."

Back in 2003, RIM and Nokia entered a licensing agreement that allowed both companies to use some of each other's standard-essential patents. However, in 2011, RIM requested that Nokia's WLAN patents be part of the original deal in Sweden.

During arbitration, Nokia said that RIM's use of the WLAN technology in products would violate its patents unless RIM agreed to pay royalties. RIM then admitted that it used WLAN in its products, saying that it thought the patents were part of the original deal.

Analysts expected RIM to come to a licensing agreement with Nokia soon, since the BlackBerry maker would be unable to ship its new BlackBerry devices with the new BB10 software in January 2013.

RIM recently announced better-than-expected Q3 financial results and 7 percent boost in shares, although it took its first hit to its subscriber base as Apple and Google-powered smartphones steal its market share.

This an example of how companies can work things out. Notice neither one was American. American companies have to "battle" it out, just like in their National Anthem. Its blaring in their ears from cradle to grave. Confrontation is the name of the game. Can't wait for Blackberry 10.

Well you have to remember right now apple is crapping their pants, Samsung is out selling them 2 to 1, their global marketshare for phones has plummeted to 14% and tablets down to 51%..........So their goal is to eliminate their competition though litigation in an attempt to remove them from the market all together....By summer Android will dominate the tablet marketshare just like they do with the smart phone marketshare

Considering the number of x86 windows machines that will be considered tablets, Android won't hold the high % you think it will. The Win8 RT tablets have been luke warm, but the enterprises who haven't adopted tablet strategies yet will have a strong case to use Windows tablets that can run all their software.

"So, I think the same thing of the music industry. They can't say that they're losing money, you know what I'm saying. They just probably don't have the same surplus that they had." -- Wu-Tang Clan founder RZA